The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

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Now that the first signs of an actual iPhone 6 model testing iOS 7 emanating from the IP footprint of Apple's Cupertino campus have been identified in app usage logs, it's time to open the next season of the product design equivalent of Fantasy Football. Contestants pick features from existing Apple products as well as from their overheated imaginations in the attempt to beat the iPhone maker at its own game.

As I wrote last season, there is an interesting, dream-like symbiosis that happens around these prototypes. A kind of parallel alternate reality, aching to be true.

The first player to field an entry is Italian designer Federico Ciccarese of Ciccarese Design. He takes his inspiration from the current Nano line, but the real innovation is his suggestion of a merging of iOS and Mac OS X in the next version of Apple's mobile software. Conceptually, that is almost certainly where things are headed, but my guess is that it will more likely be OS X that morphs into iOS instead of the other way around as shown here.